#tnpcto

[ourtalechara]

S

Stupes mutuals

How y'all think Blake Midwinter texts

[awadama-fever]

so now that chimney is giving me that skibidi rizz

[ourtalechara]

Just for the record, I was drawing fanart for The Muppets Cypher on Sunday night. I was planning on working on it Monday afternoon.

Then Stupes released a new song.

So thanks Stupes. You made me delay my fanart.

[ourtalechara]

All those fantasies your families have

Told.

Are.

Trashed.

You want magic? Well that's tragic, cause we sold. Our. Stash.

It don't MATTER that our STRATEGIES are bold, harsh, brash

When we WAKE up to a GREAT big lump of

COLD! 🕶️

HARD! 🔴

CASH! 💵

[ourtalechara]

Guys what if we got the tiktok section of TNPCTO going as a thing on tiktok.

[ourtalechara]

Can I talk for a moment about the bridge to TNPCTO?

It's my favorite part of the song for various reasons. Due to it being slower, I find it easier and more fun to sing. It also helps change up the pacing relative to the rest of the song. These things might be why it reminds me of the bridge to The Production Line, as that's also a fast paced song that is given some more time to breathe during the bridge.

It's also the section that begins to really tell a story, or a story deeper than simply the takeover itself.

We've sent whimsy down your chimneys for the last two thousand years

The North Pole has, since Christmas first started, been the gifters of presents, whishes, joy. And they've liked it. (The next line may say they don't but shhhh yes they do it's referring to something else trust me)

And forgive me being grinchy but we've had it up to here

Oh look it's the next line. So. Uh. They're sick of this. Of what? Of having their frickin. Christmas stuff stolen.

Took our vision by committee and you've got commercial-eyes

Turned the mystique into mincemeat as you fought over the pie

You parsed our thing through marketing, commodified the cheer

A bunch of companies saw Christmas and were like "ooh. I could make money out of that."

So now you've got a lot of corporations that are trying to use the Christmas spirit as a marketing tactic. They're trying to take genuine joy and whimsy and crush it down into the fine mulch of progress, make a profit by manipulating something generally associated with joy into something that can benefit them.

And what does the North Pole say?

You'll hardly see us arguing; you've got the right idea

They say, "hey, that doesn't sound too bad"

"Why don't we do that?"

But you've dined free on our IP, so make it understood

That licensees, though fine to eat, don't bake the fudging pud

I kind of wish I had a better grasp on the exact meaning of these lines so I could examine them better. But, while I can't really explain them, I think I have a good general understanding of them: this is Christmas. This is our thing. We're going to do what we want with it, especially if it's something that's being done to it anyway.

The rest of the lyrics up until the chorus are still some of my favorites, but they also don't have too much to do with the theme I'm talking about, so I'm going to skip ahead to what is absolutely one of my favorite couplets from the whole song.

You guys chose to monetize it

So why can't those who devised it?

This is an extension of the same things that were said in the bridge, and perhaps what really brings it all together.

We own this. We made this. What right don't we have to do whatever you do to it?

If you want to complain that Christmas has ended up this way, what right did you have to get this ball rolling in the first place?

Isn't it hypocritical? Isn't this what you wanted?

No?

Then why did you start doing it?

[ourtalechara]

Guys that one YouTuber who reacts to the Stupendium sometimes posted an hour long reaction to TNPCTO I don't think I'm mentally prepared for this

[ourtalechara]

Why do I have to have rehearsals today I wanted to listen to TNPCTO and No One's Home ten times

[ourtalechara]

Hi hi hello again I'm going to be doing what I've been doing for the last two days and talking about TNPCTO. Specifically the names.

So, everyone who has seen this song or it's prologue has probably picked up on the way that all the characters have been named.

Christopher Kringle - Santa has a bunch of names, Kris Kringle being one of them. So they made that his name.

Ken D. Caine - a potentially real name that, when said aloud, sounds like "candy cane", a typically peppermint-flavored piece of candy associated with the wintertime

Elise Navidad - a reference to the Spanish phrase "Feliz Navidad," or "Happy Christmas". Likely specifically referencing the popular song, "Feliz Navidad ".

Special shout-out to E. Bunny, Saint Patrick, and Cupid. Also the Pancake Day HQ, but they don't have a mascot.

But there's one character who I want to talk about who I find particularly interesting for a few reasons. One of them being that I have so far talked to at least two people who did not know what his namesake was. So, I'll start with that.

In the Bleak Midwinter is a poem by Christina Rossetti about the birth of Jesus Christ. There are several musical arrangements for this piece, and if I had to choose one word to describe them both, I think it would have to be melancholy.

I think that this is such an interesting choice of namesake. For one, it doesn't quite feel like the others to me. One character is named after a christmasy type of candy, and another will likely remain you of a song which many consider an earworm. And that's great, I love them. But, in contrast, there's something so... well, bleak about Blake's name. Just the words "bleak midwinter" bring to mind gray, cold, perhaps lifeless. The most well known melodies are melancholy and the first verse is filled with this cold imagery.

In the bleak mid-winter

Frosty wind made moan

Earth stood hard as iron,

Water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

Snow on snow,

In the bleak mid-winter

Long, long ago.

And yet... I don't know. There's something about this name, and about this song, that has always felt like a warm fuzzy blanket to me. Something heavy and relaxing. There's even something about the fact that his name isn't exactly Bleak Midwinter. Something about obfuscating the meaning behind the name and altering the word bleak. It doesn't feel as cold or harsh when the most lifeless word in the phrase is, softened, so to say. It feels more approachable.

The thing that makes me think that this might be somewhat intentional, rather than just a cool thing I found regardless of if anyone meant to put it there, is when Santa's nameplate changes. It goes from "Christopher Kringle", a name which, I think of as softer, and one associated with the jolly old Santa Claus, to "Blake Midwinter". It signifies that a change has officially been made, that the North Pole is now under new management, and it sort of hints at the kind of direction the company is going to be going. Christmas isn't going to be the same anymore. It's going to be more grey. More soulless. More... Bleak.

[ourtalechara]

Currently blasting TNPCTO through my phone

(Is it just me, or does Blake get less and less British?)

I love the part in the previously on where Blake is waving the clipboard at Santa

(is that the sound of a baby crying in the first verse???)

Also my singing teacher pointed out that that tool that Ken gives to the elf is really small in Ken's hand, but regular size in the elf's hand

I kind of want to learn the tiktok dance but it's hard enough to look at let alone do

[ourtalechara]

By the way in case anyone not from England heard the Stupendium mention "pancake day" at the end of TNPCTO and thought they were making it up

They weren't

It's a thing

Not just like "it's technically a thing" like how every day is a holiday we just don't care about most of them, but, like,

I don't know how many people know that this is a thing, because I've never heard anyone talk about it other than my family, and one time when we had a pancake day celebration at school when I was really young (or maybe more than one year? Idr, like I said I was young) so I assume that it's not really a thing in America, but. In case you didn't know. Yeah. It's real

[awadama-fever]

idk but here's these

S

Stupes mutuals

How y'all think Blake Midwinter texts

[ourtalechara]

True, true

If I had to guess

Blake uses all lowercase and never replies on time cause he thinks it makes him seem cool. He also might use emojis just a bit too often

Elise replies imminently, and texts normally for the most part, but she uses a bunch of cute emoticons and says stuff like "YIPPEE!! 😄🥳"

Spellcheck is Ken's best friend and it shows when he texts. Especially if he's in a hurry. He'll be like "sordm I dho to go talk wisfo" and you'll text "huh?" And he won't see it 'cause he's busy so you have to sit around for five hours wondering what he was trying to tell you. Every once in a while he'll drop in a "😊" or a ":3" on it's own and Blake will tell him to cut it out (he'll respond "😔," "😞," or ":(" or something along those lines)

This is only when texting or in personal emails, though. In work emails, they all remain normal and professional for the most part. Elise replies to emails almost as soon as she gets them, Blake replies whenever he feels it is personally convenient for him, and Ken often forgets about his emails and then takes five extra minutes after writing them just to make sure he didn't make any mistakes

S

Stupes mutuals

How y'all think Blake Midwinter texts

[awadama-fever]

find a way to listen to tnpcto and no one's home 10 times somehow

Why do I have to have rehearsals today I wanted to listen to TNPCTO and No One's Home ten times